Reading votes July 13 on a data-center zoning pause

Reading City Council meets Monday, July 13, 2026, at 7:00 p.m. in Council Chambers at City Hall, 815 Washington Street, with a Zoom, Facebook, and BCTV MAC Channel 99 option for watching from home. The night's biggest item asks Council to hit pause on data centers.

What Council will vote on

Item 7-A on the agenda is a resolution that would declare part of Reading's zoning code legally defective because it says nothing about data centers, and then freeze the gap shut for six months while the city writes rules. It runs through a tool in state law called a municipal curative amendment.

A curative amendment is how a Pennsylvania municipality admits its own zoning ordinance has a hole and commits to fixing it. Section 609.2 of the state Municipalities Planning Code lets a city self-declare the ordinance "substantively invalid," which starts a 180-day clock. During those 180 days the resolution says the city "shall not be required to entertain or consider any zoning permit application, zoning approval or landowner curative amendment" for a data center or a similar use. In the same period, Council and the City Planning Commission are to draft and adopt the amendment that fills the gap.

If Council adopts the resolution tonight, a company cannot force a data-center application through Reading's current, silent code, and the city has until roughly January to decide where the facilities may go and under what limits.

The resolution was drafted by the Council solicitor and Councilmember Jaime Baez Jr. and referred by Baez. It identifies the specific parts of the zoning ordinance that fail to define, permit, or set standards for data centers, and states that the rest of the code stays valid.

How the city got here

At the July 6 Committee of the Whole, Baez presented a draft ordinance that would allow data centers only in the Heavy Manufacturing district and only by conditional use, meaning each application would go before Council. City Solicitor Michael Gombar laid out the curative-amendment-and-moratorium route as an alternative that avoids rushing a permanent ordinance, and Community Development Director David Barr backed that approach, WFMZ reported. Tonight's resolution is that route reaching a vote.

Baez has pointed to the roughly 50-acre former Dana South site at 1 Berkshire Plaza, sold in March, as the kind of property a data center could target, though no application has been filed. Our earlier report lays out the data-center rules moving through five Berks municipalities at once and why residents keep turning up on the issue: electricity demand in the tens of megawatts, water use for cooling, noise, and what happens to the buildings when an operator leaves.

Reading is not moving alone

The same night, a few miles west, the Spring Township Board of Supervisors has its own "Resolution required by Section 609.2.1.i regarding Data Centers" on its July 13 agenda. Two Berks governments are reaching for the identical state tool on the same evening, which is what the run-up suggested would happen.

Also on Reading's agenda

• A $641,933.52 yearly payment to Axon for police body cameras and Tasers.
• A resolution seeking a $250,000 state grant, with a $37,500 city match, to stand up a youth-violence prevention commission.
• A budget change adding $512,825 to buy the property at 2040 Centre Avenue.
• Reconfirming Joseph Famiglietti as finance director at $120,000 a year.

How to comment

Public comment on tonight's data-center resolution is allowed, but you have to register first. Call the City Clerk at 610-655-6205 or email council@readingpa.gov by 4 p.m. on the day of the meeting, or sign up in person at the podium in Council Chambers between 5 and 7 p.m. Speakers on agenda items get up to five minutes.

Which government controls which zoning decision is in how Berks County government works, and all of our Reading coverage collects on the Reading page. We will follow with a recap once Council votes.